D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[fluffybunbunkittens]

That's because the 5e is not tightly proscribed, unlike 4e. And it ignores almost everything in 4e about short rests marking the boundaries between encounters.

That is flavor text in a random corner of the DMG... it is there to drive home that having back to back encounters is harder than facing them each separately when rested. Because this is the DM Guide. Shockingly, the same thing holds true in 5e as well.

 

[Voadam]

3.0: At will: animate dead, blasphemy, charm person, create undead, desecrate, detect good, detect magic, dispel magic, fireball, hold person, improved invisibility, magic circle against good, major image, produce flame, polymorph self, pyrotechnics, suggestion, teleport without error (self plus 50 pounds of objects only), unholy aura, unhallow, and wall of fire; 1/day-meteor swarm (any) and symbol (any).

3.5: At will—blasphemy (DC 25), create undead, fireball (DC 21), greater dispel magic, greater teleport (self plus 50 pounds of objects only), invisibility, magic circle against good, mass hold monster (DC 27), persistent image (DC 23), power word stun, unholy aura (DC 26); 1/day—meteor swarm (DC 27).

The 3.5 CR 20 pit fiend can throw a meteor swarm once a day and a fireball at will, which is a nice ranged area of effect, but a 10d6 fireball is going to do 35 damage save for 17 (or none for rogues and monks) before any fire resistance, so not that big a deal at CR 20. A CR 20 mage can do multiple meteor swarms and then 8th level spells once they run out. Still, being able to do a meteor swarm, that adds on to their threat so that plus their melee prowess should come out to CR20, which means you expect their melee prowess to be less than something designed just for melee at CR 20.
. . .

4e took the route of mechanically making monsters focus on their combat role, so either artillery or brute or lurker, etc. with a few signature flavor things for the specific monster type. So essentially not multiclassing outsiders.

Worth noting that the 4e Monster Vault Pit Fiend is a soldier leader monster role, which means a tougher melee combatant with minor ally abilities.

The prior edition fire powers get subsumed into a constant 5 square aura 15 fire damage power and a flaming mace attack.

The leader thing is being able to teleport reposition allies within 10 squares and to blow up minions to cause some area of effect damage.

Magically they have some fear powers and they can at will move as a 50' teleport as their move action.

Much less magical than prior editions, much more bruisery.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think you could be a bit more charitable here. It's pretty obvious that they meant that they don't see much difference between a 4e 5-minute rest and a 5e 1-hour-but-you-can-change-it-willy-nilly rest, not that they see no difference in the editions as a whole.

While you're absolutely right about what the difference IS, I think it's clear that that difference is more subjective on whether it counts as "fundamental" or "not a big deal".

I mean, now that I understand why YOU think it's a big deal, I'm inclined to tip my hat to your point, but at the same time - to me, it made very little difference to how I run the game, then or now.

The hour part of 5e makes a bigger difference! (In that, I find it much harder to find a spot in my narrative where the PCs can choose to take an hour's break, where they couldn't just choose to take an 8 hour long rest - but that's an entirely different issue.)

So, here's the thing. Charitable. Sure! I have no issue being charitable. Usually, in a conversation, charity is a two-way street.

Now, as you know, I write a lot about the history of D&D, and a fair amount of rules, prior editions, and the like. But ... I almost never, ever discuss 4e. Why? Because ... of this!

I just had a number of posts discussing 4e and talking about how it was a good design. But ... that's not enough, is it? It never is.

See, here's the thing when you enter a 4e discussion. You have to remember the following rules:

1. 5e is just like 4e, because 4e was awesome, and since 5e did well, all the awesome was reflected in 4e. Or something.
EXCEPT
2. 5e is nothing like 4e, because the 5e designers lied and told people that it would reflect all the past editions, but they hated 4e. Or something.

1. The 4e DMG(s) were amazing, because people read them and they did a great job both explaining how to run the game and proscribing processes of play. Heck, just look at page 42! If you don't quote page 42, you didn't really play 4e, right?
EXCEPT
2. The 4e DMG(s) are just a guide that is really nothing but flavor text, so if you bother reading it and understanding it, it has no relevance on the play, at all.

I get it. It's contentious. But I don't think I have been the one lacking a charitable construction, here. To the extent that people want to ensure that 4e is barely discussed, well, they do a good job! So, there's that?

 

[James Gasik]

Yes, even the beefier 3.5 outsiders are still essentially multiclassed bruiser spellcasters. Not as vulnerable as a straight mage spellcaster of the same CR, more magical options and tricks than a straight tanked out melee combatant of the same CR. For the CR system to work they have to be a bit weaker in casting and throw down melee than either the straight casters or the straight bruisers doing those specialties alone. The 3.5 CR 20 pit fiend can throw a meteor swarm once a day and a fireball at will, which is a nice ranged area of effect, but a 10d6 fireball is going to do 35 damage save for 17 (or none for rogues and monks) before any fire resistance, so not that big a deal at CR 20. A CR 20 mage can do multiple meteor swarms and then 8th level spells once they run out. Still, being able to do a meteor swarm, that adds on to their threat so that plus their melee prowess should come out to CR20, which means you expect their melee prowess to be less than something designed just for melee at CR 20.

Dragons with their big magic have a bit of the same issue in 3.5.

4e took the route of mechanically making monsters focus on their combat role, so either artillery or brute or lurker, etc. with a few signature flavor things for the specific monster type. So essentially not multiclassing outsiders.

I'm not sure if this is tangential, but it's a long-standing question I've had- why is it that, in 5e, spellcaster opponents, in addition to having way more hit points than any PC spellcaster, generally have the ability to cast very high level spells. For example, the CR 12 Archmage has 18d8 Hit Dice, but casts 9th level spells.

In the last session of the game I was playing, we had to fight a trio of undead Warlocks, and the DM asked me if I was going to Counterspell an upcast-to-5th-level Shatter. Being 6th level, that meant using up one of my top level spell slots with a 50% chance of success (DC 15 Int check, I have an 18, so 11 or better roll).

I took my chances with the damage, but far from the first time, I had to ask why enemy spellcasters are so strong in 5e!

 

[nevin]

The funny thing is that even in 3.5, the creatures with big lists of spell-like abilities (SLAs) were quite often not the combat monsters their CR presented them as being.

Sort of.

If you ever picked up a copy of Bad Axe Games' Trailblazer: Teratologue (affiliate link) – which was a monster book companion to Trailblazer, their own attempt at a 3.75 edition – you likely noticed that they made an interesting notation regarding the monsters' CR. Specifically, it noted that they'd used the work of Craig Cochrane (our very own @Upper_Krust), who had taken the idea that a monster's CR was the aggregate total of everything in its stat block to its natural conclusion, devising an intricate breakdown that assigned a numerical value to each aspect of a monster's stats (i.e. Hit Dice, Base Attack Bonus, feats, skill bonuses, movement types, etc.), all of which cumulatively added up to its CR.

Now, the Teratologue didn't reproduce U_K's work in full, but instead adjusted the monsters' CRs accordingly. However, it included a certain takeaway from it: all of the monsters in the book had their total CR, but also a "spine CR" listed.

The "spine CR" was the Challenge Rating that a monster had by taking into account only the "spine" of its stat block, which was the term that Bad Axe Games used for the core features such as Hit Dice, Base Attack Bonus, melee and ranged attacks, saving throws, and one or two other things. The idea there was that the spine CR was an accurate measurement for how dangerous a creature was if you treated it like a brawler; that it ran up to the party and just started making attacks for all it was worth.

For plenty of monsters, the spine CR and the total CR were virtually identical. A bulette or a dire bear aren't going to do much besides move up and make attacks each round. But for creatures with large amounts of SLAs (or actual spells, for that matter) the differences between the spine CR and the total CR were often dramatic. The pit fiend (which was virtually identical to the 3.5 pit fiend), with a total CR of 20, had a spine CR of...9.75. Which is to say, by having it plant its feet and slug it out with a 20th-level fighter, the pit fiend was going to absolutely get its ass kicked in short order.

Total CR takes everything into account, and for creatures with large lists of SLAs, those make up a considerable portion of that number. So if they act like casters first and foremost, before eventually closing to melee, you get the full "value" of the encounter. But if you have them move in and ignore their SLAs, then it shouldn't be surprising that they're not going to have as much oomph as their total CR would suggest.

It really made for fascinating reading, and it's a shame that the concept (and the book) isn't wider known today.

nice read but the problem is the same thing exists on the party side. The composition of the party classes, players that min max vs players that don't etc, etc, affect how powerful the CR is as well. A high level group that has poor spell lists may not be able to deal with a certain spell casting encounter, while a party with a couple of antimagic items and no spellcasters can handle easy peazy. Designers usually design for a normal party composition that rarely exists. I think that's probably why you don't see more complicated and inclusive CR systems. Almost no table meets "normal"

 

[Willie the Duck]

I'm not sure if this is tangential, but it's a long-standing question I've had- why is it that, in 5e, spellcaster opponents, in addition to having way more hit points than any PC spellcaster, generally have the ability to cast very high level spells.

The general logic seems to be that one high-level PC (or PC-equivalent) isn't worth their CR in challenge to a party. That seems to bear out with them as solo opponents, or swapping a high level martial for a giant in a 'BBEG with minions' boss-battle. The farther you go away from that (say, a caster with minions or even worse two or three casters) and the more wild and swingy things get ('oh good, the enemy trio of wizards-not-hags witches just got initiative and triple-blasted the party into unconciousness').

 

[nevin]

I'm not sure if this is tangential, but it's a long-standing question I've had- why is it that, in 5e, spellcaster opponents, in addition to having way more hit points than any PC spellcaster, generally have the ability to cast very high level spells. For example, the CR 12 Archmage has 18d8 Hit Dice, but casts 9th level spells.

In the last session of the game I was playing, we had to fight a trio of undead Warlocks, and the DM asked me if I was going to Counterspell an upcast-to-5th-level Shatter. Being 6th level, that meant using up one of my top level spell slots with a 50% chance of success (DC 15 Int check, I have an 18, so 11 or better roll).

I took my chances with the damage, but far from the first time, I had to ask why enemy spellcasters are so strong in 5e!

Been a complaint of mine since 2e. my opinion Lazy DM'ing. Party gets successful Dm get's frustrated and instead of fighting more intelligently just beefs up the monsters. Though to be fair. Running encounters more intelligently can easily wipe a party that's not ready for it.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

So, here's the thing. Charitable. Sure! I have no issue being charitable. Usually, in a conversation, charity is a two-way street.

Now, as you know, I write a lot about the history of D&D, and a fair amount of rules, prior editions, and the like. But ... I almost never, ever discuss 4e. Why? Because ... of this!

I just had a number of posts discussing 4e and talking about how it was a good design. But ... that's not enough, is it? It never is.

See, here's the thing when you enter a 4e discussion. You have to remember the following rules:

1. 5e is just like 4e, because 4e was awesome, and since 5e did well, all the awesome was reflected in 4e. Or something.
EXCEPT
2. 5e is nothing like 4e, because the 5e designers lied and told people that it would reflect all the past editions, but they hated 4e. Or something.

1. The 4e DMG(s) were amazing, because people read them and they did a great job both explaining how to run the game and proscribing processes of play. Heck, just look at page 42! If you don't quote page 42, you didn't really play 4e, right?
EXCEPT
2. The 4e DMG(s) are just a guide that is really nothing but flavor text, so if you bother reading it and understanding it, it has no relevance on the play, at all.

I get it. It's contentious. But I don't think I have been the one lacking a charitable construction, here. To the extent that people want to ensure that 4e is barely discussed, well, they do a good job! So, there's that?

I think the problem here is that you seem to be treating the discussion as being done by some sort of hive-mind. I mean, you're absolutely right that it tends to go like that when you step back and look at the big picture - but each individual post by each individual poster has its own story and its own motivations. Yours as well! You wind up part of that big picture that makes it look that way!

I mean, look at US - seemingly arguing, when I enjoy your "company" - I think you're posts are both hilarious and educating! But you can't discuss anything without breaking a few eggs. You can only lecture. (Now, sometimes your posts ARE lectures, but in a good way!)

But it seems to me, that a lot of your post above reflects that you're looking at the big picture, and ignoring that it's made up of individuals. Some of the contradictions come because the claims are made by different people. Not all of them, of course. People are also contradictory, and even further, are terrible at explaining themselves. Especially in writing. Many people here are terrible writers, but even those of us who are good writers find it hard to express what we're trying to say here - sometime famously misunderstood. You know that it happens to you.

I don't think that disagreeing on some piece of nuance on another person's post is any attempt to end a discussion - it's an attempt to engage in it. Even when the poster doesn't understand that that's what they're doing.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I don't think that disagreeing on some piece of nuance on another person's post is any attempt to end a discussion - it's an attempt to engage in it. Even when the poster doesn't understand that that's what they're doing.

As Mama Snarf used to tell me, "Snarf, the real secret in life is honesty, kindness, and empathy to other people. And if you can fake that, you've got it made. Now, get yer Mama a case of the Mad Dog and a fire extinguisher for the flaming 151 shots."

 

[FitzTheRuke]

As Mama Snarf used to tell me, "Snarf, the real secret in life is honesty, kindness, and empathy to other people. And if you can fake that, you've got it made. Now, get yer Mama a case of the Mad Dog and a fire extinguisher for the flaming 151 shots."

Never change, Snarf. You make my day.